Information and Communications Technology in Education for Persons with Special Needs (ICTEPSN)

Abstract

Education is a prerequisite to and national development. The level of availability and use of information and communications technology (ICT) in Nigeria school settings, particular, for persons (children and adults) with special needs education. The paper investigates the level of using ICT for the development of persons with special needs to meet up with the contemporary educational system in Nigeria school settings. Development in special needs education including availability and adequate use of ICT basic facilities namely: online portal, network service, internet service and ICT devices. The survey questionnaire was developed through a Centre for Visually Handicapped and selected respondents from Department of Adults Education (Federal College of Education Obudu) in Obudu Local Government Area of Cross River State, to collect data. The results revealed that impacts of ICT policy implementation in Nigeria schools for special needs would paves way for standard educational development in Nigeria school settings, inclusion of education for modern stage of using ICT as tools is possible in Nigeria educational system for ICT cutting-edge transformation. Also, it was revealed that inadequate use of ICT facilities for teaching and learning contributed to the limitation of overall performance of persons with special needs, particularly in academic and extra-curricular activities in national development. The conclusions and recommendations amongst others were as follows: the need to teach the persons with special needs (PSN) by using ICT facilities as a tool and computers technology in the Nigerian schools’ settings for achieving educational development goals of Nigeria school settings.